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Louisiana: No Charges in Death

The New Orleans coroner said the death of Jannie Burgess, 79, who died at Memorial Medical Center after Hurricane Katrina, will not be reclassified as a homicide because she had been sick and the cause of death could not be determined. Ms. Burgess, who had developed a tolerance for morphine, was given seven injections of the drug, said the coroner, Dr. Frank Minyard, adding that it did not kill her. Questions about the death arose after The New York Times published an article in which Dr. Ewing Cook acknowledged increasing the dose of morphine. The district attorney’s office said that homicide charges could not be pursued at this time.

A version of this brief appears in print on March 12, 2010, on Page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: Louisiana: No Charge in Hospital Death. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe